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Show History Written at Quebec; Only Time Will Reveal It Military Experts Satisfied With Results of Roosevelt -Churchill Conference; Political Angle an Enigma. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. Mr. Baukhage has written today's to-day's column from Quebec, site of the Roosevelt-Churchill conference, confer-ence, which he covered for newspapers news-papers affiliated with Western Newspaper Union. WNU Service, Union Trust Building Washington, D. C. Now that some of the deep secrets which surrounded the most important impor-tant conference so far held by the firm of Roosevelt & Churchill, purveyors pur-veyors of victory, are beginning to be revealed in action, one can lean back, gaze at this remarkable ad-vonture ad-vonture in history in the making and wonder . . . I cannot help recalling the evening eve-ning of Sunday, August 22, nearly a month after the actual preparations prepara-tions for the conference began, the purpose of which waa then un-guessed un-guessed even by the people whose job was to do the spade work. I was sitting with Edgar Mowrer, the well-known newspaper man, Michael Mich-ael Barkway, representative of the British Broadcasting company, and Wilson Woodside, commentator for the Canadian Broadcasting system. That morning the news had broken that Ambassador Litvinov would not return to Washington. It was learned that a virtually unknown member of the Soviet diplomatic corps, who had been their representative represent-ative in Ottawa, was to replace the adroit Mr. Maisky, Stalin's expert lieutenant in London. Woodside had learned, quite by accident, that a little while before the representative of Tass, the official offi-cial Russian news agency, who had been an active participator in the press conferences, had suddenly departed de-parted from our midst severing the last shadowy link with the Kremlin. A few days before, just as a rumor was circulating that the conference had agreed upon the division of Germany into separate states as one of the post-war steps, the text of a broadcast from Moscow was printed In an American paper. It was made by the so-called Free Germany committee, com-mittee, and of course could not have voiced any views contrary to the will of Stalin. It urged that the German army be kept intact after the war! Stalin's Absence Of course Stalin's absence from the conference had been widely discussed dis-cussed in Quebec. To say the least we were four very confused members mem-bers of press and radio, and I think our feelings were typical two of us had covered international conferences confer-ences before. Was Russia running a competition show to the one staged on the heights of America's Gibraltar? Gibral-tar? The shudder we shuddered and which spread out over the telegraph lines and airwaves bounced back to the walls of the Citadel where the top-men were conferring. At an eight o'clock conference that eve-evening eve-evening presidential secretary Stephen Ste-phen Early announced that the recall re-call of Litvinov had been known to the conferees long before it happened hap-pened and had no influence or effect ef-fect on the conference. Meanwhile all sorts of speculation about the effect of the absence of the Russians, the ominous "empty chair," had been pouring out of Quebec, Que-bec, perhaps comforting if not aiding aid-ing the enemy and probably making no one happy, even Stalin. Could this and the other unfortunate unfortu-nate things which were written have been avoided; were we, in spite of ourselves, evil muses? I Bald to one of the willing but rather futile and frustrated men who were supposed to provide us with facts: if we could have just had a little guidance wouldn't it have been better? He admitted that was true, but, he added, "When an information man asks the higher ups for information informa-tion they are so afraid they will say more than they ought to that we get nothing." More than 200 press, radio and news photographers were here. We filled to bursting the little old Clarendon Clar-endon hotel, with its narrow corridors, corri-dors, its lobby turned into a telegraph tele-graph office, and its modest bedrooms bed-rooms made into press room and broadcasting studios. Two blocks away was the spacious Chateau Frontenac, a Normandie palace with 750 bedrooms, where some 300 military mili-tary and technical experts were immolated. im-molated. Canadian Mounted police, tough British marines and hefty Canadian Ca-nadian veterans of Dieppe guarded its portals. The inmates, like us, were virtually incommunicado. When they dared take a one-day's river trip one officer said, "it was to prevent an outbreak of claustrophobia." claustro-phobia." Invisible Ink There is much we did not know when we arrived. There is more we still do not know of what occurred after the conferees met History was written but it was written in invisible ink. Now some things can be told. In the first place the event was, perhaps per-haps purposely, perhaps unwittingly, unwitting-ly, played down in Washington in advance. Before I left the capital I was assured the conference would probably end about the Wednesday a week before it did. I had hoped for a quiet half-week's vacation. But no sooner had I arrived on the Sunday preceding Roosevelt's arrival ar-rival the next Tuesday, than I saw we were all wrong. I felt sure something some-thing had happened when the President Presi-dent and the prime minister had their preliminary talk at Hyde Park. Something did, for I am sure there had been no intention of producing the parade of cabinet officers and other brass hats who kept dropping in from the skies and elsewhere one after another. But I learned that the length of the conference was planned to a "t" by the President long before it began. He knew it would last precisely as long as it did for he timed his Ottawa trip in advance so he would be back in Washington on August 26. He knew what was coming and that is why he slipped off for that fishing trip, which was just that and nothing more, ahead of the conference it was a health measure pure and simple. sim-ple. Churchill and his midnight cigars ci-gars are something to prepare for, the wee sma hours are the big moments mo-ments for this human dynamo. Then the "something" yet to be revealed, happened. Churchill hailed his foreign minister from London and with him came not only Information Infor-mation Minister Bracken, who played no part as an informer but nevertheless was of cabinet rank, but also the permanent head of the British foreign office, Sir Alexander Cadogan with the accent on the "dog" pronounced (though Secretary Early could never quite master it) "dug." , Of course Hull ad to appear to match Eden; then another cabinet member, Secretary of War Stimson to match Bracken and then Secretary Secre-tary of the Navy Knox for good measure, perhaps to give verisimilitude verisimili-tude to the talk that the Pacific was not being neglected. Then just before be-fore Stalin made public his gesture of withdrawal (recalling Litvinov), T. V. Soong, Chinese foreign minister minis-ter more or less permanently installed in-stalled in Washington for some time past, appeared. Then there was the excuse that a big drive on Burma was in the wind. The Big Drive Meanwhile the press had blown very hot and then very cold on an immediate invasion of Europe from Britain. I don't know whether the reports that the big smash was coming com-ing was a part of the Allied war of nerves, but I am sure that the folks who threw cold water on it were sincere in their belief it just couldn't be started before spring. I sat with a general whom I have known for a long time, a real soldier in World War I as well as in this one. Here's what he had to say: "We haven't got the men yet. We must drop bombs upon bombs. There is a lot more softening up to do." This man was on the periphery not on the inside. I am sure that the technical experts, the officers and we had them all, probably the greatest aggregation of military brains and real experience, too, ever assembled anywhere they were sure. They were certain. And when the conference was over they were satisfied. As to the political side, that is an enigma and will be one as long as Russia remains one. And that she is. |